Set of 6 Emberstack Hand Forged Damascus Bowie Knife with Stacked Leather | Groomsmen Gift Set | RK-2178-S6

Bulk set discount: 15% off. Buying this set of 6 costs 15% less than buying the same pieces one at a time.

This set is 6 of the same piece: Emberstack Hand Forged Damascus Bowie Knife with Stacked Leather. It is the same item sold on its own single listing, packed together for groomsmen or a wedding party. Every piece in the set is the same model. Each one is handmade, so small differences in grain or pattern from one piece to the next are normal.

Buying the set costs 15% less than buying 6 single pieces. For names, choose Text engraving, type one name per line and each name goes on its own piece. Engraving is done here in the United States before the set ships.

A full sized bowie in 1095 and 15N20 Damascus, with a long clip along the top of the blade, a fuller running most of the length and a handle built from stacked leather washers. The guard is polished steel, the pommel cap is steel with a circular knot medallion cut into the end, and the leather stack runs in alternating light and dark bands where the washers were cut from different hides.

The stacked leather handle is worth explaining because it looks like a shortcut and it is the opposite. Discs of vegetable tanned leather are punched, threaded onto the tang one at a time, compressed hard under the pommel nut, then turned and sanded to shape as a single solid block. The result grips better in wet hands than wood, absorbs shock, and it will not crack the way a natural material can. It is the handle the United States military specified on fighting knives for most of the twentieth century for exactly those reasons. Made by hand in the Czech Republic, imported and checked by Ransack Viking, shipped from our North Babylon, New York warehouse with a fitted leather belt sheath.

The clip point and the deep belly are what make a bowie a bowie, and the bowie buying guide covers what the shape is good at. The pattern is real forge welding rather than a print, and five checks before you buy shows you how to tell. For dressing game the skinner knives take over where a bowie stops being handy.

Specifications

What the clip is for

The clip is the concave sweep taken out of the top of the blade near the point, and it is the single feature that makes a bowie a bowie. Removing that material does two useful things. It drops the point down toward the centre line of the blade, which puts the tip where the force of a thrust naturally travels, and it thins the last portion of the blade so the point enters cleanly instead of wedging.

On this knife the clip is left unsharpened, which is the more useful arrangement. A false edge along the clip looks impressive and costs you the ability to put a thumb up there for control on a fine cut. The fuller running down the flat is the other feature people misread. It is not a blood groove, an idea that has no historical basis at all. It is a stiffening rib, the same principle as an I beam, and it lets a long blade lose weight without losing rigidity.

Damascus and stacked leather

The blade is layered 1095 and 15N20 forge welded, folded, drawn and then etched. Nickel in the 15N20 resists the acid so those layers stay bright while the 1095 darkens, and the pattern you see is the cross section of that folded stack. Hardened to 58 to 60 HRC it holds an edge well. It is not stainless, so it needs oil.

The handle is a stack of leather discs under compression. Because they are all clamped between the guard and the pommel and then finished as one piece, the joints effectively disappear and what is left is a solid, slightly resilient block that warms to the hand. Over years of use a stacked handle will compress a little more and the pommel may need a quarter turn to bring it back tight, which is normal and easy. Leather also darkens with handling, so an older stack looks nothing like a new one, in a good way.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel, the leather or the wood. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us where it goes. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. On this bowie the ricasso and the flat above the fuller both take a rune line, and the pommel medallion can be recut with your own mark. Engraving is done here in the United States after the piece arrives. See the engraving page.

Handling and balance

A bowie of this size balances near the guard, which is what you want in a knife that has to do fine work as well as heavy work. Take a normal grip with the guard across the base of the fingers for chopping and batoning, and choke up onto the ricasso with the thumb on the spine for skinning and detail cutting.

The steel pommel cap is heavy enough to be useful for light tapping, but do not use it as a hammer. It is peened over a tang, not forged as one piece, and repeated hard impact will loosen a through tang assembly over time. Keep hard tasks for the blade and the edge.

Care

Wipe and oil the blade after use, and be thorough in the fuller where a cloth will bridge over the hollow and leave moisture sitting. A folded corner of cloth or a cotton bud gets in there. Mineral oil, camellia oil or a light gun oil all work. If the stacked leather handle dries out, a small amount of neutral leather cream worked in and buffed off restores it, but keep oil out of the joint between the leather and the guard, because a saturated stack softens. Do not store the knife in the sheath for long periods. Sharpen on a stone and keep the clip unsharpened. There is more in steel care.

Damascus wants oil more than plain steel does, because the etch that shows the pattern also opens the surface, and caring for a Damascus pattern covers what to use.

Made in the Czech Republic

Made by hand in the Czech Republic. The billet is forge welded and folded, the blade ground, fullered and etched, the leather washers stacked, compressed and turned, the fittings made and the sheath cut and stitched by the people who make it. Nothing here is drop shipped from an importer catalogue. Ransack Viking imports them into the United States, checks each edge, each handle for tightness and each sheath for fit, and stocks them in our North Babylon, New York warehouse so orders leave from a shelf. Processing is one to two weeks, at the longer end when an engraving is ordered because the cut happens after the knife arrives. Shipping in the United States is free, returns run seven days, and the lifetime warranty against defects in forging, grind, heat treat and fittings has no end date and needs no receipt.

A note on handmade variation

Hand made, not machine made or bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. The Damascus figure is a slice through a folded billet and no two blades match. The stacked handle varies more than most people expect, because the light and dark banding depends on which hides the washers were punched from and in what order they went on the tang, so the stripe pattern on yours will be its own. The engraved pommel medallion is cut individually. The steel, the hardness, the geometry and the build are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

Is the clip sharpened

No, and that is deliberate. An unsharpened clip lets you put a thumb on the spine near the point for control on a fine cut, which is worth more on a working knife than a second edge.

Is the fuller a blood groove

No. That name has no historical basis. It is a stiffening rib that lets a long blade shed weight without losing rigidity, the same idea as the web of an I beam.

Will the stacked leather handle come loose

It can compress very slightly over years of hard use. A quarter turn on the pommel nut takes it up again. If it ever loosens because the assembly was not compressed properly at build, that is a defect and the warranty covers it.

Can it get wet

Briefly, yes. Dry it and oil the blade afterwards, and let the handle dry at room temperature rather than near a heater, which will shrink the leather.

Is it sharp out of the box

Yes. It ships with a working edge that will shave and skin without further work.

What sheath does it come with

A fitted brown leather belt sheath, cut for this blade specifically, with a belt loop that takes a standard width belt.

What is in the box

• One Damascus bowie knife with a stacked leather handle and steel fittings
• One fitted brown leather belt sheath
• Your Elder Futhark rune line or chosen Viking design, if ordered
• Lifetime warranty against defects in forging, grind, heat treat and fittings
• Hand made in the Czech Republic, shipped from our North Babylon, New York warehouse

Explore the range

More in bowie knives, hunting knives, Viking knives and engraved and personalised pieces, plus the guides.

If this one is not it

In the same category sits the Brasscliff bowie knife, 15 inches overall. A near match for this one is the Bonecliff bowie knife, 13 inches overall. Closest to this in the range is the Ebonknot tanto knife, pattern welded Damascus.

Fitting out further, the Cordraven kukri knife belongs with it. Pick the steel, the length and the fittings yourself on the custom hunting knife page.

Matched sets for the whole wedding party are in Wedding & Groomsmen Gifts. Want just one? See the single piece listing.